New Century
by Talliya
Summary: Well it's currently a work in progress... so I don't really have a summary yet. It's really just a whole bunch of new characters inspired and placed in the world of Avatar: The Last Air Bender.


_**I do not own any rights the Avatar: The Last Air Bender or it's characters.**_

_**Alright, this is what I had originally and no it wasn't finished yet. But I am going through and correcting it and changing stuff around. But here's my general idea I guess.**_

Rolling over woke me. I was wrapped in a blanket, or had been. Its location was currently my feet. The rain was incessant as it came down, I was soaked through. That didn't matter too much though, I'd been sick before I laid down for the night. I'm not sure how I obtained the blanket, but I was grateful for it. A short distance away I heard a little boy, obviously sick, crying that he was cold. So, even though I was exhausted from drying out blankets and keeping fires going for the past three days, I stood up, dried the blanket and took it over. I restarted all of the camp and house fires to help ward off the chill. The rain wasn't very helpful which was what taxed me so greatly. Being a fire-bender, the only one for weeks at that, put me in a slippery situation in the Earth Kingdom. The rainy season was always bad here, but usually there was a water-bender around to direct the rains so that damages were kept to a minimum. This village however had just lost theirs to the ravages of old age. I'd been passing through on my way back to the Fire nation, one of the children saw me fire-bending and before I knew it they were all begging me for help. There was no way I could refuse. For the last three days straight I have been the only thoroughly soaked thing in the village, add my utter exhaustion to that and you'll see why I have a cold.

My name is Airisa and I am one of Princess Tya's handmaidens, as the second daughter to the Fire Nation Lord it is her duty to make sure that the rights of agné-kei are fulfilled and properly judged by a bender of each element. As her handmaiden I am sent out to do the judging, however judging a match between Water and Earth is a bit hard for someone who doesn't know their techniques and therefore can't tell if they cheat or not. This was my second run of the gambit, I think I'm getting a bit better at judging the other elements, but I still have a long way to go.

My life hasn't always been like this, my family was originally Water Tribe, we were from the north Pole and after Avatar Aange set everything right with the four nations we (the Water Tribes as a whole) were asked to co-mingle, to journey around and learn, to be open for/to new ideas and help from the other nations. My family was not one of benders, we came to the Northern tip of the Earth Kingdom as an escort to a powerful bending family so that (on a hunch of my great-great grandmother's) they could find water-benders among the other Nations: the other nations soon caught on and were looking for benders of their element in other places as well. But back to my family – we ended up staying in the Southern end of the Earth Kingdom (close to where I am now actually) when my great-uncle got sick, while the Bender family kept going we stayed, making medicines for the local people. Pretty soon no one outside the family remembered that we were Water Tribe, according to everyone (including national censuses) we were Earth Kingdom. We weren't poor or anything, medicine making is still something my family name is known or, but we were getting a bit crowded. Some Fire Nation troops came through when I was ten looking for young girls to train to attend to the Fire Lord's family, I was volunteered for the job. I was really nervous about it; there were a couple of girls the same age as me and some were older and some who were younger, but unlike me – all of them were benders: fire, water, earth and air. Because benders were the elite, they were special. The poor guards simply thought that I wasn't a show-off when I did everything the hard way and never practiced bending. It got me in on their good side. When we got to the palace and everyone was made to show what they could do in mock agné-kei tournaments, I knew it was over for me. I didn't know it at the time, being from the backwoods of the Earth Kingdom and all, that the kid who was testing each girl was the oldest Princess of the Fire Nation, Kyoa. She's a pretty mean person and back then she was ruthless. I figured I would probably die if I was sent out there; so I went and told the lady who was sending us out that I didn't/couldn't do any bending. That I'd be given over because my family had no room to keep me, but I was very good at doing everything without it. I remember she laughed at me and announced that she was sending me out next even though that was out of order. (Oh joy a new reason for the benders to hate me – I rolled my eyes.) So I went out there and dodged around a lot, it wasn't like I hadn't been picked on by other benders before, I was a great athlete. Kyoa got fed up with me, yelled at me. "Come on! This is agné-kei you have to use Bending!" So I looked her in the eye and told her I didn't know any, that I couldn't bend any element and that I very much doubted being thrown out here was going to magically produce any talent in me. Everything got VERY quiet then. I heard a small voice from behind me urging me to say "Your Majesty." So I did, with a bow and a red face because I hadn't known. I'm not sure Kyoa has ever forgiven me for that. However I was dutifully shipped off to the servants courters, I was not to be trained as a handmaiden, but since my family obviously didn't want me I was to be a household servant. And for my uncanny athletic ability I was allowed to train with the guard in every aspect except that of bending. Though by my twelfth year I was training them in avoiding bending. But I also came with the gift of Water Tribe medicine making, once the healers there learned my family name I was immediately pressed for the knowledge my family kept secret. I wouldn't budge on it. But the royal family got very sick one winter and in secret I went out to the market and got what I needed for the potion to cure them and made it. I silently handed it to the head healer and went back to work. I'd made exactly enough and only enough to cure everyone who was sick – that way the healers had nothing to copy from and my families secret was safe, I was eleven then. The soldiers gave me a nickname that stuck for a very long time, one that I'm rather famous for/as by now for my fighting capabilities, Soul Scream, for the frustration I bring.

When I was fourteen I got the biggest shock of my life ~ I'll start this story from its beginning. I'd been given the task of training some of the younger potentials in the motions of Fire-bending combat – since I knew the movements and the basic concepts of what they were supposed to do to fire-bend, and I had the added bonus that I wouldn't get hit if they couldn't aim it properly (or even if they could). So I'm training a bunt of new recruits some who were the same age as me, but most of them older with a few younger people who were in militia families. Now I wasn't teaching the fire bending, simply how to control certain combat sequences that they needed to know. At the time there was a huge gathering of people from all four nations at the palace because the new Water Tribe Prince had just been crowned (after insert name here had died the royal line was no longer hereditary) and was journeying to meet all of the other kingdom's leaders. ~ So the fire Lord, the Earth King and the Head Monk. This was the main reason I'd been picked to train them and also why training was taking place at a training camp in the middle-of-nowhere-Fire-Nation ~ thus begins the problem. Some Jaki Raiders decided we were good pickings, even though we obviously were there only for training, the only person with any money was me and we had no 'valuables' unless you counted our lives as valuable (which I did and do). They came in the night sneaking past a sleeping learner on guard duty – if my ears weren't so keen they would have made off with the younger children and the girls. But I heard Taÿa's [muffled surprise] and went running from the river where I'd been bathing, not a stitch on. Hadn't thought that one through very well, but I charged into camp in a fire bender fighting pose – the other guards stared at me in surprise until they saw what I was after; then all pandemonium broke loose. I ended up having to pay for replacing the training camp because they burned it to the ground. The next day Princess Tya and Prince Malak came by "on tour" and the Raider's decided to hit again, but at least this time I was clothed. So anyway, they were able to section off the Fire Princess and were herding her off, she was too frightened to fire bend her way out. So, in desperation I jumped between her and them, going through all the stances, but without fire – they thought this was funny and began laughing and taunting me even as they cursed that they couldn't hit me. Suddenly I was blinded by a blue light, I thought maybe some of her guard had gotten freed enough to come and help. I was wrong. The lightning blasted everyone in the vicinity, including the Princess (thankfully she directed it away from herself), the only one not 'hit' was me. The fighting stopped dead then – everyone staring at me and then the Royal Guard went about arresting all of the bandits as everyone else continued to stare at me in shock. I whipped around and asked the Princess if she was alright, thinking everyone was staring because she'd been hurt. But she was fine and smiling at me with the biggest smile on her face. "You're a Fire Bender Airisa." The look on my face must have been hilarious because Tya couldn't stop laughing, the Healer with them told me to make her a tonic to calm her nerves while he fixed the damage I'd caused. Numbly I did so, didn't even really look at what I was doing, I went by feel – like most everyone in my family. "Hey! You can't do that!" The Water Prince yelled as I handed the drink to Tya. "Of course she can." Tya said taking the cup from my numb fingers, "However, I think the young Teār is the one who needs it." The Princess giggled. "Wait, she's one of the Great Healers?!" Malak pointed at me in acute disgust. Princess Tya simply glared at him and had me drink half of the tonic before she took a swallow herself and forced the Prince to drink the rest. The tonic took immediate effect and soon we were each sorting things out with everyone else. Taija came over to me grinning, "You never actually 'tried' to fire bend before, did you? Just learned the motions and the concepts well enough to teach them." She shook her head. "Well, no. My family's never had a bender of any type before so I never thought about it. It's not like I was ever envious of the lack." Yep, surprise, surprise I was/am a fire bender. Princess Tya came up to me on the journey back to the Palace, "I'm so excited! You can finally be trained to be one of my Hand maiden's!" And that's how it all started. So, here I am, in the Southern edge of the Earth Kingdom trying my best to stay alive and warm and keep everyone in the village of Ӑné dry. However I really don't know how long I can keep it up. Plus if I don't personally report to the Fire Court soon I was going to be in serious trouble.


End file.
